In recent years, there are many online courses offered on the Internet. Many of these courses allow students to learn subjects of their interests at their own pace and in the comfort of their home. However, one of the problems with such conventional online courses is that they are practically a one-way transmission of information from the school's website to the student's computer terminal. There is no interaction between the students and the teacher and there is no discussion of the course materials among the teachers and the students. Another problem with the conventional online courses is that the course materials are typically stagnant throughout the duration of the course and often unchanged for months and years after the courses are offered. Yet another problem with the conventional online courses is that the quality and currency of course materials may be rooted in an individual or in a fixed small group of individuals. This model of course material development and authoring has not changed for decades. Yet another problem with the conventional online courses is that the course materials are not adapted to variations in certification or municipality requirements.
Therefore, there is a need for a distributed collaborative knowledge generation system that can address the above shortcomings of the current online educational programs.